The Board of the Legal Aid Council – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

In October 2017, a citizen, the Applicant, submitted applications for a legal aid aimed at lodging an appeal against a municipality. To support its application, the Applicant submitted additional judgements which include personal data about him. One of the document was the first instance judgement. In May 2018, the Applicant asked to the Board of the Legal Aid Council, the Defendant, the deletion of the judgements attached to the applications.   The Defendant claimed that they needed those judgments to assess whether they could grant the legal aid. They claimed that the processing was necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest. They argued that the applicant should submit judgements linked to the proceeding concerned by the legal aid application, to have a satisfactory understanding of facts. The Applicant claimed that the judgements have been attached to the application for attachment without his consent and there were unlawfully processed. He also claimed that information about the mental health status was included in those judgements and that it was not necessary for the Defendant to store them for ten years. Τhe Court had to assess whether the legal aid council was required to delete the information about the mental health status of the plaintiff according to Article 17(1)(d) GDPR. The Court recalled that deletion request under Article 17(1)(d) must be granted if the personal data have been unlawfully processed. In the present situation, the Court issued that the personal data were processed for the performance of a task carrier out in the public interest, under Article 6(1)(e) GDPR. It stressed out that Article 6(1)(e), read in conjunction with 6(3), in the lights of Recital 41, the basis for the processing does not necessarily have to be laid down in a legislative act, but it must be” clear and precise and its application should be foreseeable to persons subject to it”. In this regard, the Court hold that the application for